May Tomatoes

May is a great month to plant your tomatoes; it is a good idea to add lime to the soil when planting to help prevent blossom end rot.  For more tips on tomato planting go here: How to plant your tomatoes.  With tomato planting season going in full in May, I need to mention an old myth going back many years.  Some will say to make tomatoes ripen you need to cut back on watering.  There might be some science behind this, stressing a plant will often cause it to product off-spring as a way of continuing the species.  As someone who ran a nursery for 20 years I can say this: it may ripen your fruit faster but the resulting damage it causes to the plant may mean it will not produce again.  When you stress a plant to the point that it thinks it is going to die, you may kill it.  Further, over the years have watered my tomatoes every day and the only thing that keeps them from ripening is weather, too hot or too cold.  In May I feed my tomatoes with a high nitrogen fertilizer, but change to high phosphate one later in the year.  This is because in spring I want to get the plant big and strong, but when fruit starts to form I want the energy to go to fruit production, thus the higher phosphate.  For more descriptions and pictures of tomato varieties go to: Tomatoes